Wrestlers
A flamboyant pair of Hellenistic athletes.
This group can be viewed from either side, and the complex arrangement of muscled limbs made the Wrestlers a favourite of artists and art students. Canova, Reynolds, Flaxman and Hogarth all referred to the sculpture frequently, and the diarist Evelyn called it “plainely stupendious”.
It has been considerably restored, and the heads, although antique, do not belong with the bodies. It is considered to be a Roman copy of a Greek bronze original
Florence, Uffizi 547
Transferred from the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1884
Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 347 (n.5), pl. 121.4
Brunn-Bruckmann: Denkmäler Griechischer und Römischer Skulptur, 431
Walston: Catalogue of Casts in the Museum of Classical Archaeology (1889), 102, no.548
Reporter: 19 June 1885, 894, no.493
Found in Rome in 1583